Found here. Well, they had it, and they called it for Hillary Clinton right off the bat, and she crushed Bernie Sanders, and… they barely managed 368K voters. Which beat the adjusted target number of 235K that I suggested would be “fair,” but was still far below the 500K that they managed in 2008. Those guys are having a real enthusiasm problem.

Well, with 60% of the vote in it’s worse than I’d like, but much better than I feared: Donald Trump with around 33% of the vote, for our sins (although I’d love to know what the hell I did to deserve this guy*). Marco Rubio (who had a good night, compared to New Hampshire) and Ted Cruz (who maybe did not) are battling it out for second. Jeb Bush has bowed out**. John Kasich and Ben Carson will not, and John Kasich and Ben Carson should not be on the next debate stage.

All in all, happy I am not. But I was worried that tonight we’d see Trump at 40%, which would have meant that nothing was going to touch him and I’d be stuck with retiring from political blogging. Because I’m not going to vote for a damned 9/11 Troofer. And I won’t host a site that helps one, either…

We should start seeing results coming in about a half hour, hour after that. For the record, I think we’re going to see the top three candidates be within a few points of each other, with nobody above 30. But guessing the results ahead of time has been a nightmare for better pundits than me.

Anyway: should be interesting! Again, polls will close at 7 PM. Results will be here.

The robocalls are out tonight, and seem designed to target a certain segment of Donald Trump’s supporters by letting them know that he’s pro-gay and hates the Confederate flag. Because THAT’S the often wickedly-effective South Carolina Shadow Campaigning that we’ve all been expecting. Well, at least there have been no incest allegations.

…Yet*.

Moe Lane

*Fair warning. I have zero interest in fighting any wars tonight over homosexuality or the Confederate flag. I try to keep my essentially Northeastern RINO liberal squish nature under control, but I’m all the more infuriated because this dude makes me look bad. Donald Trump is at the point now where he taints what he touches.

Things are now getting resoundingly silly in South Carolina. For your sanity I recommend not focusing too hard on anything going on there. Just let your eyes drift… over it, and never catch on anything. It’s for the best, really.

Unless you live in South Carolina, of course. Go vote on Saturday if you do.

The primary is on February 20th for our side. Three things you must remember:

There is a reason why that Frank Underwood dude in that show is from South Carolina.

The rules to the game down there are simple: no physical violence. Everything else is fine. And when I say ‘fine’ I mean that it is fine for everybody. Even the people who you like play rough. And they don’t care about your opinion about it, either. Why should they? The operatives never get in trouble. Just the politicians.

South Carolina operatives not only can smell fear; they find it to be a bit of an aphrodisiac.

Republican state leaders and lawmakers are pushing back against the Pentagon’s potential plans to relocate Guantanamo Bay detainees at prisons in their states.

“Simply put, we do not want them in our states,” reads a letter from Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sent Tuesday to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“Please know that we will take any action within our power to make sure no Guantanamo Bay detainees are transferred to South Carolina or Kansas.”

To wit: …and you so-and-sos in Dizzy City have done your level best in the past to get rid of both of us – and failed. Elections have consequences, bub. Kansas, especially. Anybody here think that Paul Davis would have stood up to the administration on this one? No? Me, neither.

Moe Lane

PS: There’s a real easy solution to Gitmo, by the way: stop acting like it’s a problem.

Look, I understand that I will never be on Donald Trump’s Christmas card list – but this is a bad tactical call:

Donald J. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has declined to participate in one in a series of town halls run by South Carolina’s most popular politician, making the real estate mogul the only high-polling candidate to snub the state.

Because the Palmetto State is third in line to vote on the party’s nominee, because it’s first in the South, and because Sen. Tim Scott’s job approval is hovering in the heavens, his endorsement and support is as coveted as can be — making the Trump no-show all the more conspicuous.

Of the 17 GOP candidates, 15 have been scheduled to participate in Scott’s town hall series, the aim of which is to introduce each candidate individually to the state’s electorate.